Want to Profit From Reseller Hosting? Here's How

​Whether you’re providing a value-added service for existing clients or making a foray into web hosting as an entrepreneur, reseller hosting is a great place to start. It’s actually quite easy to turn a profit in as well, provided you know what you’re doing.

Here are a few measures to help maximize your profit margins when reselling. 

Choose a Good Hosting Provider

As you might expect, your choice of hosting provider can make or break your efforts. It’s probably obvious that you need to choose a host that fulfills the needs of your customers. If, for example, your clients are web developers, you’ll want to resell hosting services from a company specialized in that.

You’ll also want to subject your reseller hosting provider to the same sort of scrutiny as if you were hosting with them yourself.  You don’t want to work with an organization that has a reputation for poor customer service, for instance, nor do you want to resell the services of a host that has issues with service reliability and availability. 

Start With Attainable Goals (And Don’t Oversell) 

You aren’t going to start making six figures overnight. Virtually every reseller, no matter how successful, starts small. Your margins in the short term are going to be slim, and that’s totally fine.

What’s important is that you take things slow. Start with only a few clients, and stick to more basic hosting plans. Once you gain a bit of expertise, you can start expanding your client list and moving to more complex offerings. 

Throughout this process, the most important advice I can give you is as follows: do not oversell. The capacity of your servers is finite - they can only support a certain number of people. While it might be tempting to provide hosting services left and right, that will come back to bite you. Keep at least 25 to 30 percent of your resources free at any given time to allow for traffic surges and the like. 

Understand the Importance of Marketing and Customer Service

I’ve saved the most important advice for last. The reseller hosting market is an extremely competitive one. If you want your organization to shine, you need to be exceptional in every way - including and especially in the service you offer your clients.

Make sure you’re equipped to offer fast and comprehensive technical support. Take measures to maximize the reliability and security of the plans you offer, and make a point of being both honest about what you offer and accountable for any mistakes you might make. Your goal is to position yourself as more than a host and to prove that you can be a trusted business partner.

Beyond that, consider investing in some pay per click advertising and actively marketing your brand on social media. Search engine optimization is also a must. That said, you’ll want to maintain a blog with high-quality content.

The reseller market is highly competitive. Where search engines are concerned, you’ll want to differentiate yourself through a combination of user reviews and high-quality content. Otherwise, you may end up lost in the noise.

Conclusion

You can make a lot of money as a reseller host if you know what you’re doing. Perhaps more importantly, you can create a lot of value for your customers. Provided you have the budget, desire, and expertise to do so, there’s no reason not to get involved.